President's clear speaking helps us recognize diversity

Posted: Thursday, August 19, 2010

President Obama is accused of making a bad situation worse by his comments: That our constitution guarantees religious freedom for Americans and gives Muslims the right to build their mosque on the property they own in New York City. That he was not going to comment on the wisdom of building a mosque on that site. (Maureen Dowd, New York Times and comments, August 19.)

I disagree that clear speaking by President Obama is making a bad situation worse. Because of his clear speaking we are becoming more aware of the diversity of Americans and our degrees of tolerance-intolerance. In my opinion we are becoming better at speaking up, better at recognizing our differences, better at respecting those differences and better at appreciating those differences. I would suggest we still have a long way to go to increase our tolerance-intolerance ratio. Thanks Americans.